Arcanum Killer

Tuesday, March 1 2011, 11:13 AMKharlah Law is pretending to be looking for something while the creepy man is staring at her, forcing any fear within her to rise. She tries to look at the figure. She sees his dirty, ragged, black raincoat, and the powerful-looking shape of his body clearly, but his facial features remain indistinct as if she cannot focus on them at all…
He overwhelms her and she feels great sorrow and fear, experiencing the abandonment her mother (Lilly Law) felt when her Cherokee father left her.
Kharlah becomes angry. She gathers courage and begins slashing at him as she sobs and cries.
She misses several times as he begins to leave the scene, walking backwards, telling her it’s not time yet. She stabs him successfully. He goes in to attack and grabs her, she lets him and stabs him again.
They grapple shortly and he tries to bite her as she holds a knife in his gut. She headbutts him and his attack is thwarted.
She leaves the knife stuck in his gut. His blood is on her, a strange mix of tar and ichor. It is dark and it smells foul.
She runs like hell, into the rain and to the first place with people in it. Without thinking, she ends up at Mr Chin’s.
She calls Marcus.

Tuesday, March 1 2011, 11:19 AMMarcus talks to Kharlah, who begins to explain almost everything. Marcus gets a patrol guy to pick up Kharlah. The officer, Albert Chipman, says he is waiting to be interviewed by him and Julia. Marcus dismisses him, making sure he understands how important it is that he does not leave Kharlah’s side.
Kharlah begins washing off the icky blood stuff off of her while she is waiting to be picked up.

Tuesday, March 1 2011, 11:58 AM
When Kharlah Law arrives at the police station, she shares everything with Marcus. The flashback/daydream, the lack of focus when looking at the assailant. Her stabbing him, him grabbing her, etc.
Marcus realizes that the man should have died or at least has suffered a grave (life-threatening) injury from the stab wounds.
Marcus gathers some of the ichor-like substance she claims is blood, some of which she hasn’t washed off her clothing completely.
He brings the evidence to Mitchell Yazee, one of the lead lab techs at the station, and asks for the results from yesterday’s evidence concerning the double homicide. Yazee admits the Chief has requested the report earlier that morning.
Marcus storms into his boss’ office. Julia is already there. Marcus confronts his boss, but their superior is quite clear: Marcus and Julia can continue investigating the male victim’s lead, but not the female victim… A third party will be investigating her.
Marcus is pissed because the case is being shared with a third party and now the information is one-sided, as they are supposed to share their information, but not the other way around.

Tuesday, March 1 2011, 12:06 PMBilly Chan is looking for information regarding the owner of the office property where the bodies were found. Attempting to answer the questions of who it was leased to previously, who would have discovered the bodies if they had not been found right away, etc. He gets the name of a prominent real-estate investor and owner of multiple businesses, Jade Cook. Most businesses she owns can be traced back to “Cook Enterprises”, the business she oversees.
Billy’s boss also keeps pressuring him for a story, offering to give him a big bonus if he can crack the case before the investigators. Both the Editor-in-Chief and Billy realize that information is being suspiciously withdrawn: the press conference/press release regarding the investigation has been postponed, then canceled shortly thereafter. No one else seems to care whereas Billy’s boss is quite insistent.

Tuesday, March 1 2011, 5:24 PMBilly gets a phone call from Marcus who wants to meet with him.
Marcus shares the case files, and gives him $500. Marcus wants Billy to keep things off the record, but to help him dig things up wherever Marcus shouldn’t be nosing around.
The case has enough info for Billy to write a vague article with minimal evidence.

Meanwhile, Kharlah goes home to see her mom, Lilly. Her mom had a dream that reflects Kharlah’s own flashback, with the man in the black cloak and hat and chasing him in the fields.
Kharlah tries to relax in a bath. Her mother makes a casserole and sort of dozes off…
When Kharlah comes out of the bathroom, she finds her mother sleeping in her easy chair with a bible in her lap. Kharlah has never seen this bible before. There is also a tarot card inside of the same type as found at the crime scene, although, Kharlah doesn’t know it.

Lilly is catatonic.

The sound of footsteps echo unnaturally throughout the apartment building.

Marcus O’Connor receives a phone call from his boss, is given an address and heads over to the location of what he assumes is a murder (he is a Detective at Homicide) with his partner, Julia Anderson. They exchange a few pleasantries. She has brought him coffee and donuts.

They arrive at an unused building about four blocks from what is considered Chinatown. The only means of entry to the building is the fire escape (explained later), all other windows and doors on the ground level are barred or boarded up and have not been tampered with.

Marcus and Julia make their way up the fire escape ladder, the Forensics team is already sweeping the area.

On the third floor, within one of the larger open office areas for lease, two dead bodies are found, a man and a woman, facing one another, hung from the right foot with a hook and chain to the steel i-beams above.

Marcus focuses on the scene for a moment and experiences a strange and intense flashback. He sees the same scene before his eyes, two bodies, one male, one female, hung by the right foot via a handmade iron chain, attached to a solid barn beam. Every detail is the same as far as he can tell, aside from the fact that it was not modern times. Disturbed, he tries to push the thought to the back of his mind.

Marcus and Julia continue to inspect the bodies in an attempt to get a lead on the Killer. The bodies are completely shaved, all hair has apparently been removed. When looking at the man’s shoulders, he finds a strange-looking ingrown hair. When removed with tweezers, he finds that the ingrown hair is in fact a very small feather.

They find more clues.

Marcus and Julia head down the fire escape, which is connected to a backstreet between two buildings, splitting the block in half. It is raining heavily, but a small crowd of people have gathered at either end of the sidewalk.

Monday, February 28 2011, 7:12 AM

Billy Chan, local reporter, is waiting behind the ‘crime scene’ tape and makes a few attempts at getting more info from another cop as they leave but the cop knows his job well enough and turns him down.
Billy recognizes Marcus and Julia (having written an article on Marcus, tagging him as a ‘problem cop’ a couple of years back) and greets them, hoping for a bit of info. Marcus admits it’s a homicide, almost teasing our reporter. He shares nothing more.

Kharlah Law, who works and lives near this neighborhood, is walking on the sidewalk. As a bounty hunter, she is curious enough to approach the lot of them. She has known Marcus for a bit of time, having brought in people skipping on their bail to the station, as well as the usual petty criminals. Kharlah distracts Billy away from the scene with the promise of breakfast at the nearby “Mr. Chin’s” restaurant. They leave and enjoy a bite to eat, until Kharlah skips, realizing she meant to be at work.
Billy realizes he only has $1.60 on him and he already has a tab at “Mr. Chin’s” worth about $150…
The manager is not pleased and not impressed by Billy’s promises to pay him back at the end of the week. He doesn’t make a big fuss but he makes himself quite clear about what he wants. (Note from the GM: More things established at the game at this time… This exchange is done in chinese in a backroom, Billy C. is chinese-american; his uncle has a gambling den where Billy fights in underground matches; his tab at Mr. Chin’s establishment is the smallest debt Billy has currently running).

Monday, February 28 2011, 9:30 AM

In the patrol car, Marcus and Julia are driving back to the station from another (unrelated) crime scene.
Julia notices Marcus is tense and comments on it. As soon as she does, Marcus goes off bringing up a series of murders he had begun to work on with his previous partner. Some of the details are similar, at least too similar to ignore. As he explains the similarities, he begins to relive them and experiences a full-sensory flashback.
He is inspecting a body, inside an old cathedral or church, hung from a wooden beam from forged iron chains, his clothes are suggesting a medieval look. The cut on the throat is exactly the same as the one he inspected earlier this morning, made by a jagged-edged, yet sharp knife.

Since Marcus is driving, he wrestles his mind back to reality where he pulls the police cruiser over. Julia drives them back to the station. Marcus looks for the old files and drops them on Julia’s desk.

Monday, February 28 2011, 10:15 AM

Billy is looking closely at the cops posted at each end of the street, hoping to recognize them, but he does not. He does not dare to bribe them to make his way into the building.
Instead, he goes to the building across the back street, a residential building only a couple of stories taller. He makes his way to the roof access and prepares to jump across the gap.

Billy literally risks his life as he goes for the jump, and lands perfectly safe on the other side.

He opens the roof access of the abandoned office building with some difficulty.
Down at the level where the murder took place, Billy has a chance to look at the leftover evidence the cops left, and is trying to understand what happens. The bodies are gone. The chains are left. Footprints are marked… The leftovers are a bit unsatisfying so he makes his way down after being as thorough as possible.

Billy makes his way all the way to the front of the building where he figures he will blend in with passers-by instead of trying to break out from one of the boarded up windows on the ground floor.
As he opens the front door, Billy experiences a full-sensory flashback. He is leaving a medieval church in the countryside somewhere, leaving the eerie quietness of the solemn building into the clamoring heavy rainfall of the outside. He sees hills of green, trees and fields, stone and wood buildings.
Then he is in the city again, blinking and shaking his head. Nobody notices him and he closes the door behind him.

Tuesday, March 01 2011, 9:02 AM

Camille Boudraux enters her boss’ office. He is facing the wide windows of his enormous office, overlooking the grey, rainy city. Having his back turned to her, Theodore LeClair tells her he has a problem and wants it fixed.

On his desk, between Camille and Theodore, is a small flash drive. She connects it to her iPad 3 (yeah, I know) and begins looking through a criminal case file, with an autopsy report, forensic photos, etc. She connects the name of the female victim: the woman is one of her 6 assistants.

Theodore tells her that he does not want the bad publicity this case could bring in connection with the company, especially because of an important merger that the firm is overseeing for the next three months.

Camille assures her boss she will have it handled. Theodore insists that solving the crime quickly will whisk it through the media faster than the lingering fear a drawn-out case could, which usually gives the media a chance to scare the community, re-hashing the same details over and over.
She agrees.

After she leaves his office, she gathers the other assistants, instructs them on what to say to the media if they are asked about it, works with HR on sending memos about Public Relations policies, etc, and makes an appointment with the City Commissioner. Camille and the Commissioner meet. They work together on a deal to pull the case’s details from media as much as possible.

Tuesday, March 01 2011, 10:23 AM_

Kharlah is tracking down a man wanted for Grand Theft Auto and locates what appears to be a stolen vehicle in a parking garage near the perp’s mother’s residence. She inspects the vehicle and notices something peculiar on the passenger side seat. A black hat with a broad brim and a pointed top. The hat looks extremely worn. Ancient, even.
She daydreams for a moment and experiences a brief flashback: she is running through fields of wheat, running after a man wearing a cloak, a cape and the same hat. Above him on the horizon is a full moon. Then the flashback ends.

Kharlah hears footsteps in the parking lot and feels as if she is suffocating. She did not draw breath during her flashback. The heavy footsteps echo in the parking lot and she is feeling more and more afraid, not daring to look at the figure moving towards her. She drops to the ground and pretends to be looking for something behind and under the car, sort of hiding away from the figure.

The footsteps can be heard closer and closer and finally to her side of the car.